Oddbean

By and large, people are lazy and don't want anything more than a choice between A and B, despite the regular complaining about the fact that we only have two viable parties. In all this time, not one 3rd party has done the work to elect local and state candidates, and build the necessary infrastructure to plausibly compete. They always pop up every four years to run a promotional candidate with no chance of succeeding without having done any of the ground work to make their party viable.

A 3rd party presidential candidate is a waste. I think third parties should endorse presidents and get representation in the house / senate / states first. What would a president with no backing do?

Well, typically the winning candidate has the unified support of their party. So, if a Republican president wins, and Republicans control Congress, then the president basically has the support of Congress. It gets a little trickier when the opposing party controls Congress because then you have a divided government. Some people prefer a divided government because they believe the controlling opposition provides a check on the power of the president. Others are opposed to divided government because it makes executing the president's agenda more difficult, which is either good or bad depending on whether your party is in control of Congress.

That's true. Although it depends on how willing members of the other side are to negotiate, and work across the aisle. In a perfect world, our elected leaders would prioritize getting things done for the American people over the tribal partisanship. But as has become apparent, we definitely do not live in a perfect world.